Jazz and Photography in Cuba

by Pablo Rigal

In November 2024, Amaurea Press will publish Jazz Habana: Siete Miradas/Seven Views. What follows is an abridged version of Pablo Rigal’s introduction to the book.

Jazz is smooth and cool. Jazz is rage. Jazz flows like water. Jazz never seems to begin or end. Jazz isn’t methodical, but jazz isn’t messy either. Jazz is a conversation, a give and take. Jazz is the connection and communication between musicians. Jazz is abandon.

Nat Wolff

This is a book of photography, ranging from photojournalism or portraiture, in which personal images are caught, to concrete moments of cultural or social relevance, in which the jazz musicians have been captured in action. At the same time, subjective elements, such as the psychology of the musicians, or even the atmospheric subtleties on stage, tend towards the artistic, and show us seven artists whose vehicle has been the camera – just as the canvas, oil paint or brush are for a painter.

Photography and Jazz have always had a mutual affection, recognised in the first musicians to come to fame in the southern United States in the atmosphere of jazz clubs, where cigarette smoke rises like a curtain through the air. The frenetic, sweaty hands of a pianist or of a bass player have been chased by the eye of photographers determined to trap with their lens the images of a musician’s catharsis at the climax of their performance.

It is true that it is not only photography that formed an early relationship with Jazz. There was also literature. The art of writing arises from the transformation, and needs conflict, and it is that characteristic that writer and jazz musician share. This happened with the beat generation in the United States. The novel On the Road, by Jack Kerouac, and the poem Howl, by Allen Ginsberg, capture the drama of the social context out of which Jazz was born. The context of the poor black arriving in the night:

smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz

Allen Gisberg, Howl

But it is in the short story ‘The Pursuer’ – a homage to the saxophonist Charlie Parker – where we can find the essence of the relationship between Jazz and Literature. This story is constructed around the relationship between a critic (Bruno) and the saxophonist Johnny Carter (a clear allusion to the founder of Bebop) – a relationship recounted by the critic, who moves between judgement and admiration. In the words of the Columbian writer, Pablo Montoya: “A conscience that is horrified by the moral disorder of the damned. Which at the same time it admires.”

Photography is different from Literature. It does not judge, whether to praise or to condemn. It simply shows, and in this eagerness to show, there is always an obvious complicity. For this reason, it is more like a mirror: a magic mirror, like that in Snow White, that shows the musicians how they would see themselves, how the photographer would like to see them, in a combination of visions. And this is possible because while Literature is written afterwards, in solitude, the artist with a lens needs to be present, sharing the space with the jazz musician. Drinking the same wine. Shutting their eyes in reaction to the same light, or dilating their pupils in the same darkness.

This is what this book is concerned with. The images that we see capture the essence of the musicians from seven viewpoints. As we are told by Rudy in the Caravan jazz magazine:

the most interesting of photographs are those that show the moments when an artist drops their guard, and relaxes, when they are concentrated in their creativity, or when they do not imagine they are being photographed

In Cuba, it is undeniable that impulse that photography has given to the music performed at Jazz Plaza, in the first instance, and then JoJazz from the end of the 1990s. It is almost obligatory for the photographers to enter into dialogue with these two events, and collect in their work images of the Cuban and foreign musicians who come together there.

However, Cuban jazz photography emerged long before, with the images of musicians like the Cuban percussionist, Chano Pozo, which enriched the presence of such legendary figures of Cuban jazz in North American photography during the 1940s and 50s. In 1948, Allan Grant – the same New York photographer who took photos of Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, and other famous Hollywood actors – photographed an entire session with Chano Pozo. Herman Leonard – another of the greats of US photography – succeeded in capturing the intensity of Pozo’s performance. And in Havana, Armando Hernández López – known as Armand in Cuban artistic circles of the 40s and 50s – and the famous Ruibal, captured with their cameras the triumphant appearance of the drummer from central Havana.

As a result of the closeness of the United States, and the cultural exchange between Cuba and the US South along the banks of the Mississippi, bands came to the island, finding a fertile terrain in Cuba’s strong musical tradition. The African presence mixed with the European gave the popular music of the two nations a similar history. Cuba had Ignacio Piñeiro, the United States had Charles Budy Bolden – who, according to the journalist Rafael Lam, was “a king who knew African secrets.” The influence was of course not in just one direction. Lam himself affirmed, in an article published in the magazine Cubarte:

…Cuba sends tons of musical merchandise to the United States. Many Cuban musicians began to invade New York. Little by little figures from Cuba became established, like Xavier Cugat (a Spaniard trained in Cuba), Desi Arnaz (from Santiago, who conquered musically, and later in Hollywood television), Miguelito Valdés, Panchito Riset, Vicentico Valdés and a long list of musical stars (Mario Bauzá, Alberto Socarrás, Frank Grillo Machito, his sister Graciela, René Hernández, Chico O’Farrill, Chano Pozo, Tata Guiñes) in the Waldorf Astoria.

Jazz Plaza was the result of a long presence of Jazz in Cuba. It emerged following the post-1959 creation of the art schools, and other cultural institutions that facilitated the growth and maturation of that presence. In the 1970s there were already several spaces in Havana where musicians like Armando Zequeira and Felipe Dulzaides, along with singers related to ‘feeling’ (a movement that was much influenced by the Brazilian Jazz of the 1950s), systematically developed their jam sessions: the Hotel Riviera, the Gato Tuerto club.

From 1983, the event became international, with the presence of Tania María (the well-known Brazilian pianist). From then on, other centres joined with the Casa de la Cultura de Plaza to put on performances: the Mella Theatre, the National Theatre, and Maxim’s Club.

The Jazz Plaza festival opened the doors for a systematic and mutually enriching exchange between Cuban and foreign musicians. To make a list of all the greats who have performed over more than forty years at this, the most important of Cuban musical events, would be impractical. But it is worth noting some of these virtuosos: Dizzy Gillespie, Ry Cooder, Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock, Tania María, Tete Montoliu, Michel Camilo, Carmen McRae, Chano Domínguez, Giovanni Hidalgo, Charlie Haden, Danilo Pérez, Gato Barbieri, Roy Hargrove, Maz Roach, Steve Coleman, Airto Moreira, David Amran, Roy Ayers, Irene Reid, Leon Thomas, Dave Valentín, Terence Blanchard, Ronnie Scott, Winston Marsalis.

From 1984, the efforts of Elio Ojeda brought about the establishment of a photographic salon: FotoJazz. This event accompanied Jazz Plaza for more than two decades. The journalist Emir García Meralla, of Portal Cubarte, affirms:

For more than twenty years the Festival counted on a high impact accessory, which was an idea by one of the founding fathers, and this was FotoJazz. It was begun by the photographer Elio Ojeda – possibly the Cuban photographer with the largest collection of images around the theme from over the last fifty years. And later other photographers became involved, and the exhibition achieved a level of quality and conceptual diversity.

Moments in which gestures convert the musician’s concentration into an expressionist vision (Elio Miniello, Gonzalo Vidal, Abel Carmenate, Maité Fernández); a jazz café atmosphere, with the use of black and white, evoking classical visions from the genesis of Jazz Photography (Xavier Carvajal, Gonzalo Vidal, Elio Miniello); general views of the theatres, transmitting the shared atmosphere of public and performer, alongside close ups that explore the expressive possibilities of the musicians’ faces (Enrique Smith Soto, Abel Carminate, Maité Fernández).

With their work, they confirm the words of the photographer Esther Cidoncha (an Algerian resident in Spain):

Without Photography, Jazz would not be the same.

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